Thursday, September 3, 2015

Coast Guard Icebreaker Clears Hudson River

As everyone knows this has been an
extremely cold and snowy winter all across the region, with people anxiously
awaiting the warmth of spring. The brutally cold temperatures in February have
dipped to as low as -20 degrees with the wind chill in certain areas, resulting
in the Hudson River completely freezing over.

The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker the
Sturgeon Bay has been clearing a shipping lane on the river from New York City
to Albany to ensure that barges can deliver jet fuel, gasoline and home heating
oil as well as road salt, cement and scrap metals to customers and
businesses.

In a phone interview, Commander Lt.
Kenneth R. Sauerbrunn USCG said the Coast Guard designates ice season from
December 15 through April 1. He said the Sturgeon Bay has broken through ice up
to 8 inches thick, with some snow capped ice areas reaching 18 inches, but the
ship is capable of handling ice 30 inches thick, a scenario Sauerbrunn said he
has not had the opportunity to witness.

The Sturgeon Bay is 140 feet in
length with a beam height of 37.5, is powered by two diesel engines and
displaces 662 tons. To break up the ice the ship uses a low pressure air hull
lubrication system, called the bubbler method, which forces air and water
between the hull and the ice to break up the ice.

Sauerbrunn
described how the system works.

“Throughout
the hull there are little ports that air shoots out of and it actually looks
like the ship is sitting in a bubble bath; there’s just bubbles coming out from
underneath the water all around the ship. That helps us in very thick ice by
forcing water up between the hull and the thick ice on the side of the hull and
it creates that little bit of lubrication [and] actually makes us much more
efficient,” he said.

Sauerbrunn
said his ship is the most advanced domestic type in today’s Coast Guard fleet.
In addition, sister ship ‘Thunder Bay’ and the 65 foot Coast Guard cutter
‘Wire’ are presently operating on the Hudson River. He said the Sturgeon Bay
operates on the river for up to 3 weeks before returning to their home port of
Bayonne, NJ where routine maintenance and preventative engineering work is
performed “just to make sure that we’re always fully operational.”

Sauerbrunn has a year round crew of
17 on board.

“We each
stand 4 hour watches…and a new watch comes on every 4 hours,” he said, adding
that it is too dangerous to operate the ship cutting through ice at night.

Sauerbrunn
said the Sturgeon Bay has a special ‘football’ shaped hull design.

“That
allows us to ride up onto the ice…and the weight of the ship crushes the ice,”
he said, adding that the design produces a “very big wake and the wake helps
break up ice on either side of us; not only are we crushing directly beneath
the hull but if we are moving fast enough it crushes ice on either side.” He
said his ship can reach a maximum speed of 12 knots, or approximately 15 mph.
The ship initially cuts a path that is nearly 40 feet wide when the ice is very
think but after several passes, they are able to expand that to “a nice wide
track” of nearly 150 feet. In the narrow parts of the river they keep their
widths to 100 feet but in other sections, from Poughkeepsie south, they have
the room to create paths that are up to 250 feet across because of the river’s
width and depth.

Sauerbrunn
said sections of the river are not wide enough for two ships to pass each
other, especially north of Kingston.

“There
are certain designated spots throughout the river that the Coast Guard carves
out extra wide and we call those passing zones,” he said. “[When] we have
southbound and northbound traffic meeting they try and time it so they meet in
these wide passing zones.”

Sauerbrunn
said there are five areas between Kingston and Albany where they form these
passing lanes. He said there is a particularly narrow area of the river by West
Point known as ‘World’s End.’

“That’s
actually one of several designated choke points; areas in the river where there
is a tight bend or ice has been known to accumulate very easily,” he said,
adding that Crum Elbow above Poughkeepsie is another “major choke point and
others as you go north.”

Sauerbrunn
said there is an advantage to limiting the width of a track.

“You only
want to break as much [ice] as necessary because the more of that really thick
stuff in the swirl that breaks off, the more that can flow into the track and
clog up [for] vessels making their way,” he said. “The risk is the more ice you
break, the more ice you make, so we only try to break as much as we need.”

Sauerbrunn
called this winter the “worst one since 2004; the most ice as far as thickness
and as far as percent coverage.” He said this has resulted in a record number
of requests for ice breaking assistance on the river.

Sauerbrunn recalled that recently his ship was
able to free up 8 barges near Germantown that were “stacked up and all stuck
and no one could get around each other. To know that we got all 8 vessels
moving south and unstuck [is] very satisfying, knowing that we’re out there
making a difference.”

Sauerbrunn,
a graduate of the U. S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Ct., said he and his
job are a “perfect fit.”

“I didn’t
know what I was getting myself into when I joined, but shortly thereafter I
realized that it’s an incredible organization…I can’t imagine doing anything
else,” he said.